Quick guide: What Should You Outsource to a Virtual Assistant?

When you’ve been a solopreneur for a long time, it’s gonna be pretty hard to let go of control. Even if you’re practically overworked and overwhelmed, you’ll still choose to do everything yourself.

Problem is, this is not sustainable.

Because here’s the thing: we are not superheroes. If we want our business to grow, we need to accept that — and then do something about it.

Fortunately, there’s an easy way around this and I’m sure you’ve heard of it before: outsourcing.

We may not be superheroes, but it comes pretty close to having a superpower.

By outsourcing, you can leverage skills of a virtual assistant to do something that’s valuable to your business. Without breaking a sweat or breaking the bank.

Now the question is: what tasks should you outsource to a virtual assistant?

Below, we’ll go through the exact steps that will help you determine exactly what tasks you should and shouldn’t outsource. Let’s dive right in!

1. List down all your tasks

Let’s begin by breaking down all your tasks. Just think about what you usually do on a daily, weekly, monthly, or even quarterly basis.

Here’s a helpful exercise: keep a notepad by your side as you work and then list down what you’re working on as you go. You can do this for a week so you can determine your tasks more accurately.

You can also use the following questions to sort through your tasks:

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

What are the tasks you love doing?

What are the tasks you shouldn’t be doing?

2. Assign a dollar value to each of your tasks

Time is money.

If you’re not smart about how and where you spend your time, you’re basically burning money.

That said, you should focus on those tasks that have the biggest impact. These are the crucial tasks that give incredibly valuable results to your business.

And to determine those, just put a dollar value for each of your task depending on how much their results are worth in your business.

For example:

Checking email: $3/hour

Customer support: $5/hour

Copywriting: $50/hour

It’s quite clear where you should spend more time on, right?

3. Categorize your tasks as a to-do or not-to-do

In this step, you’ll know have to determine which tasks go to your to-do list and which you should outsource to your virtual assistant.

Basically, here’s how your tasks should be categorized:

Tasks you’re good at / Tasks you’re not good at

You get better results when you focus on the things you’re naturally good at. On the other hand, doing tasks you’re not good at won’t bring much results for your business.

Tasks you love doing / Tasks you don’t enjoy

Also, outsourcing shouldn’t take the fun out of your work! Hold on to the tasks that you genuinely love doing. Running your business should still be enjoyable, after all! That said, routine tasks like customer service, data entry, or research should be outsourced.

Tasks you shouldn’t be doing

Additionally, the tasks you shouldn’t be doing are those that are low-value and are best done by professionals. Low-value tasks distract you from the more important work. While necessary, try to check if they can be automated. If not, outsource them.

Lastly, tasks that are best done by professionals are those that if done poorly will be more expensive than its cost-savings.

For example, if copywriting isn’t one of your strengths, you should definitely outsource it because it has a high impact on your business. Specifically, to your sales. While you can definitely save if you do it yourself, you’ll be missing out on a lot of potential conversions.

Sample tasks to outsource

Basically, your not-do-list will be your virtual assistant task list. To give you more ideas, here’s are some tasks that are commonly outsourced:

4. Explore your opportunities

Now that you’ve pruned your task list, you’re now left with only the most high-impact tasks. Most importantly, you’ve significantly freed up your time!

Now the next question is, where will you spend it?

You may choose to go full-time on marketing, improve your sales funnel, add new traffic sources… the possibilities are endless!

You can now do the things you love doing or the work that matters most. And of course, you can spend extra time with your family, too!

Conclusion

The ultimate dream is to remove yourself from your business. That means your team should be able to run it without your direct involvement.

Before you get to that point though, you should first master the art of delegation. If you don’t know what or how to let go of things in your business, you’ll get stuck at being an overworked and overwhelmed CEO.

But by doing this exercise, you’re already one step closer! The next step is to find the right people to do these tasks. Because with the right people on your team, it’ll be easier and faster for you to grow your business.